


for let thy efforts be

by Thorinsmut



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Complete, Demisexual adjacent, Denial: it's not just a river in Egypt, Explicit Consent, Fingering, Frottage, Happy Ending, Kissing, Lust and Love, M/M, Other, Oysters, Pining, alcohol consumption, approximately canon compliant, making the effort, metaphysical porn, nonhuman genitalia, way too much talking during sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-07-31 08:27:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20112109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorinsmut/pseuds/Thorinsmut
Summary: The first time Crowley made the Effort, he was reclining on a very comfortable couch in the dimly-lit confines of a cozy little restaurant in Rome, with his head pillowed upon the breast of an Angel.





	1. Crowley

**Author's Note:**

> In the style of Terry Pratchett, there are footnotes! You should be able to read them in mouseover text (if on a computer) or by clicking the hyperlinks (on either mobile or on a computer).
> 
> Many thanks to starbit for a stellar beta! Any mistakes are entirely my own.
> 
> Enjoy!  
<3  
TS

The first time Crowley Made The EffortTM was in Rome.

That is an untruth, really. He'd switched on his physical body's sexuality once or twice, the same way you might go poking through all the menus to check the settings when you get a new cellphone or computer. Computers and cellphones were millennia away from being invented, of course, but the principle was about the same. Crowley had put his body through its paces to see what the fun new toy could do, but the Effort hadn't seemed worth the effort, as it were, and he'd let it turn off again and hardly spared it a thought.

It was in Rome that he thought to try it on again. Just on a whim.

He was wearing his toga tied up scandalously short, because after four thousand years poking his nose into human affairs he was fairly good at figuring out passive temptations that didn't take much work. They varied culturally, but casual confidence, a display of the flexibility that came naturally to someone who was a little bit snake, and the hint that you _ might _ be able to glimpse something forbidden tended to do the trick. Which is to say that Crowley was sauntering around Rome in a too-short toga with his slender-but-muscular thighs on full display in order to spread a low-grade miasma of Lust around himself.

In that much he was successful, which pleased him after the disappointing mess of Caligula's party. He was probably going to get a commendation for even though he hadn't had to do anything. Humans didn't need one bit of help to be evil.

But we are not hear to talk about what might or might not have happened or was supposed to have happened at Caligula's party, or how it made Crowley feel. We're here to talk about the Effort, and when and where the Demon Crowley made it.

He was reclining on a very comfortable couch in the dimly-lit confines of Petronius's restaurant, with his head pillowed upon the breast of an Angel. Not the breast of just any Angel, of course, Aziraphale's, which unlike that of so many Angels who went for bodies as hard and sculpted as marble, was soft and voluptuous and couldn't have been any more comfortable for a demonic head to lie upon if it had in fact sported a pair of breasts.

They made a dramatic picture, there on the couch—a chiaroscuro of dark against light, long slender limbs against plump rounded lines. Crowley couldn't help knowing it, with the flashes of Lust and Envy from men around them who wanted to be in one or the other of their places, or wanted to join their distinctly two-person party. Aziraphale's white toga had slipped a bit, exposing the creamy-pale thigh behind Crowley to the other diners' eyes, which only added to the miasma of Lust around them.

Azriraphale didn't seem to have noticed, completely captivated by the food and drink. Petronius himself had come out to take Aziraphale's order, greeting him as a dear friend and suggesting what was best today. They had two different wines and a strong and fruity mead to drink, and soft flatbreads with tangy olive oil and sea salt to dip them in, and little bites of sweet fruit and cheeses and tart pickled vegetables, and of course the oysters Aziraphale had conspired to tempt Crowley with.

It should have been Gluttony. Crowley should have been sated on the forbidden richness of angelic sin, but that wasn't what he felt at all, from Aziraphale. It was joy in the _goodness_ of the earth and sea, in the clever inventiveness of humans. It was _ love_, for the earth and for the people who had done such delicious things to the good things that grew in it, and the love of the skill and love of the craftspeople who had worked together unknowingly to put the food before him. It was Love for the whole world and every thing in it, endless and unbounded.

The feeling was sweet and wholesome enough to give a serpent a toothache, Crowley told himself, as he lay cradled boneless against Aziraphale's chest—accepting the alcohol Aziraphale poured into his cup, and the delicious little bites Aziraphale constructed and brought to his lips. And the oysters, soft and sweet-meaty and salty—Crowley approved, on principle, of a food intended to be swallowed whole and raw. He also approved of the way some of the diners watched other men swallowing oysters, lips wet, throats working—and the way one of the men who _ wasn't_ lusting after his fellow diners was reminded of the slippery texture of his mistress's sex under his tongue as he ate one.

The room was full of Lust, that was why Crowley did it. Everyone but the two of them was thinking with their reproductive bits, and he was full and drunk.( 1 ) Because a pair of young men were debating in whispers which they wanted more between Aziraphale and Crowley; because for the past half hour the older man across the way had been dreamily indulging in a fantasy of having both Aziraphale and Crowley fucking between his slicked thighs at the same time, as he hadn't felt since he was young and beautiful; because the muscular and well-oiled serving boy was hoping to get a glance up Crowley's short toga if he angled himself _ just right _ as he picked up their spent plates and deposited the new one; because... because—

"Bless you, Marcus," Aziraphale said, beaming up at the serving boy and inadvertently curing him of a small infection that would have caused the young man and several of his lovers (and their lovers, and _ their _ lovers, and so on) a great deal of pain and embarrassment further down the road. He gasped in delight at the little plate of large, beautiful oysters, the best Petronius had in stock. "My dear, you simply _ must _ try them with the white wine sauce," he said, lifting the prettiest one from the plate to Crowley's lips.

Aziraphale had a rose blush on his cheeks, and his stormcloud eyes were shining supernaturally bright—from the alcohol, of course. Crowley opened his mouth to let Aziraphale tip the oyster gently in, never looking away from his face. Aziraphale took the second-best oyster like it was a sacrament. An inhale, eyes closed as he took in the briny scent and the tang of the wine sauce, a faint smile, and then his soft lips parting just enough to take the oyster in. He held it there in his mouth for the length of two heartbeats, and another gentle wave of Love flowed through him as he swallowed.

Aziraphale smacked his lips, turning a warm look on Crowley. He was at the angle to see over Crowley's very cool dark glasses, looking right at Crowley's yellow eyes with no defenses between them, and the corners of his eyes crinkled with happiness. "Sensuous, aren't they?" he murmured, his mouth practically _ caressing _ the words.

And to say that Crowley chose that exact moment to Make The EffortTM is also a bit of an untruth, because it didn't feel like it took him any _ effort _ at all to manifest sexual organs and urges. He went with the typically-male set, for the moment, because that's what he was wandering around as today, and because nearly everyone else in Petronius's was, and because women were so terribly closed in and controlled in Rome. (Which made it all the more rewarding to break into their cloisters, when Crowley was in a womanly mood, to spread discontent and forbidden knowledge. Four thousand years on and Crowley hadn't gotten over the kick of that, even if he still couldn't see what was so bad about _ knowing_. Still, it was very evil and proper demonic activity, or else the whole Garden fiasco wouldn't have gone down how it did, and then the earth would be so much more boring.)( 2 )

Crowley manifested his sexual organs in the sensible serpent way, the only external changes being a dimpling of the flesh between his legs and a slight swelling below it, with the more sensitive bits being tucked neatly inside where they were protected and out of the way unless needed. It was a very small change, but he was at his core a creature of power. His very presence affected the world around him, and his presence had changed, charged with a _ potential _ that hadn't been before.

The immediate increase and sharpening of the Lust around him caught Crowley off-guard. The serving boy, Marcus, was filled with a dark satisfaction at having gotten a glimpse of what he couldn't really have seen—Crowley's clothes wouldn't _ dare _ betray him that way. The older man sighed aloud, wanting, and one of the young men cuddling and whispering bit the other on the neck in a fit of desperation.

"Really, now," Aziraphale said, rolling his eyes at Crowley. He didn't chide, though, didn't try to interfere with Crowley's temptations. He smiled, and one manicured hand rubbed Crowley's arm as he reached for the wine jug with the other. "Marcus, do bring us another of the Pompeiian vintage. It's got the most delicious _ terroir_, don't you think Crowley? Nothing quite like it."

"Eh, uh, yeah," Crowley said, struggling to keep up. He did hold his cup up for a refill from the last of the jug, and he drank it, and enjoyed it, and was not at all distracted by the Lust and the Love that surrounded him.

He spent the entire evening there, lying against Aziraphale's breast the way men did in that time and that place. Crowley drank, and ate some and watched Aziraphale eat more, and he forgot for a little while to be jaded by the inventive evils of humanity.

Later, Crowley would report a very successful evening of spreading Lust temptations. The end tally was that the two young men took the older man into a discreet back room for sex, beginning a torrid affair that would bring drama to all three of their families for years. The man with a mistress got her pregnant that night, which pleased her and caused him a measure of social distress. Marcus inadvisably hooked up with a former lover, and old Petronius himself got it up for the first time in over a year, much to his and his partner's delight.

Aziraphale thwarted the wiles of the serpent lying gently on his breast, of course. His presence of Love inspired Marcus' former lover to apologize to him and set their relationship to right, and for Petronius and his dear gentleman to rekindle their loving spark, and three babies were sired by various patrons of the establishment after they left.( 3 ) In addition, two other minor healings spontaneously took place, and the one spoiled oyster in the salt-water bucket in the kitchen, which had been going to ruin the lot and make many people very ill, was surprised to discover that it was actually fresh and alive and wholesome after all.

All these things went into their final reports, but the Angel and Demon who caused them simply relaxed in each other's presence. Heaven and Hell were both still too busy with the fallout of the whole 'Jesus' thing to pay much mind to their longest-standing earthly agents besides giving them the occasional job, which even at the best of times they never checked up about. They felt safe, then and there, to toast to the night and to the world and to simply enjoy what was. A being of Love, loving everything good in the world, and a being of Curiosity and Temptation, testing and tempting and wallowing in Lust and Sloth and Gluttony.( 4 ) They talked and drank far into the night, and when they parted tipsy ways it was with a friendly kiss to the cheek and a mutual unspoken resolution to see each other more often.

In Crowley's case, he also resolved to Make The EffortTM much more often, if _ this_ was the kind of result it got. Because he was always looking for easy ways to be more effective at his job, of course. No other reason.

Crowley's saunter, in any gender, took on a more sultry and effective air with sexual organs involved, even if no one could see them.

It would be an untruth to say that Crowley never used them beyond passive temptation. Having them around did lend _ possibilities_, and Crowley always did have a weakness for the clever, for the curious; for those with a taste for the strange and the forbidden who did not shy away from serpentine features in unexpected places.

But that is another story entirely, and in any case, the reputation of oysters as an aphrodisiac was sealed that night, in Rome, where Crowley first Made The EffortTM.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1: On food and alcohol and small sins, of course, not on comfort and companionship and a second-hand sip of Divine Love. That would be ridiculous.[return to text]
> 
> 2: Though, fun as that was, Crowley was looking forward to when the predominant culture changed back to a more fluid understanding of sex and gender and weren't so strict with the two-only approach, and Crowley could just Be again.[return to text]
> 
> 3: Granted, one of them was out of wedlock, but that needn't make the report.[return to text]
> 
> 4: (and Love, oh that sweet taste of the Divine)[return to text]


	2. Aziraphale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In six thousand years, Aziraphale had Made The EffortTM exactly twice.

In six thousand years, Aziraphale had Made The EffortTM exactly twice, beyond a bit of 'oh so _ that's_ what that does' fumbling in the early days, of course.

Beyond those two rather extraordinary occasions, he didn't quite see the point. It wasn't necessary at all for fitting in among the humans on earth. Aziraphale found that if one went to a communal bath house or some other place where nudity was expected, the simple suggestion that no human wanted to look, and if they _ had _ looked, what they would have seen was completely normal and average and unremarkable in every way, did the trick just fine.( 4 )

So, two Efforts made by the Principality Aziraphale. There were some remarkable similarities between the two, for all they were millennia apart.

Normally when Aziraphale bestowed Divine Love on a struggling soul, he could do it with very little contact. A palm upon the crown of the head was traditional, but a handshake or a kiss (how Aziraphale loved kissing!) could do just as well. In a pinch it could be done without any contact at all, over the course of a friendly conversation, though that was more difficult.

Twice, he had gone quite a bit beyond even kissing. Once in a conveniently provided bedroom in the back of a discreet gentleman's club in London, but the first in a desert tent. There was a young scholar, bright and curious, confused, kind, and terribly alone. Aziraphale came to them as a lone traveler in a white robe, and was given food and water from what little the scholar had to spare, and after he and they had spoken for a few hours and as the bright stars wheeled overhead, Aziraphale gave them a kiss imbued with Love.

It could not mend their bruised and broken heart, no Angel could do that, but it was enough to light a spark in their breast—a candle against being jaded with the cruelty of the world. Enough, if they chose, to blossom some day into new love and greater life.

The young scholar gasped sweetly against Aziraphale's lips, and one hand clutched at his loose sleeve. They gazed up at him with dark eyes shining wet with tears. "Will you stay with me, Ea Zira?" they asked.

Aziraphale's heart, full of Love, reached out to theirs, and he kissed them again. "For one night," he answered, and they took him by the hand and led him into their humble tent.

Aziraphale made the Effort, there in the furs and the worn linens. He was known in his fullness that night, and in return the scholar opened to him in both body and soul, a sweet surrendering that brought them both to the heights of pleasure.

One night. Only one night. He left them with a message unspoken, but felt as deep as their bones. "Do not despair, beloved one. There is Good to be found in this world, and you may bring more Good into it if you try."

With that, he left them. With that and a question, never given voice—it had been night, and they had lit no lamps... so why was their memory of it so full of _ light_?

Aziraphale's first scholar traveled far from the place of their birth and became a healer. The second stayed in England, and became a student of law. They fought quietly but tirelessly, both of them, on the side of kindness, justice, and respect for all people. They changed the world, in ways big and small. Aziraphale was proud of them both, beyond his pride in other successful blessings ( 5 ), and treasured their twin memories close in his heart.

It had been a beautiful thing, both times Aziraphale Made The EffortTM, but that didn't mean he wanted to do it all the time. He wasn't like Crowley, who'd started doing it in Rome and, so far as Aziraphale could tell, never stopped. He had no idea how Crowley could go sauntering around with his possibilities just _ out there_, all the time. Goodness. Aziraphale tried not to think about it too much.

Oh, but there was something terribly decadent about it too, and Aziraphale always had a weakness for luxury and rare delicacies. It was darkly delicious to sit with Crowley and feel the Lusts and Temptations ( 6 ) that swirled around him, even before he started making the Effort. His aura was charged, potent, and enough to make even an Angel notice his physical form—from the loose slithery walk that called to mind Crowley's lovely snake form, to the masses of flowing red hair, the way he always took bits of fashion from men and women and blended them into something of the both-and-neither that was Crowley in truth. Crowley was sultry and untouchable and always so very very _ there_, an unignorable nexus of sensuality.

It was all a bit much... and yet somehow startlingly human of Crowley. Aziraphale didn't think he'd ever get tired of it.

It was a thrill, no denying, and nearly as terrifying as it had been to help Crowley out with a little Temptation here and there in the early days of the Arrangement (before it was absolutely clear that neither of their sides were checking in to see who was doing which piece of work).

To soak in Crowley's aura never quite lost the edge fear for Aziraphale, not that even that was enough to convince him to stop. You see there were... well... it tended to bring up _ certain urges_ , to be so close to Crowley with all his everything turned on. Urges to join him in it, to make an Effort of his own and invite him to do as physical bodies liked to do together. ( 7 ) When Crowley touched Aziraphale, the brush of bare skin in even a handshake or (oh, glorious!) a kiss when those were in fashion, the urges became all but unbearable. He didn't, of course! Aziraphale was an Angel. He wasn't meant to _ give in_ to the temptations Crowley put out for the humans! It wouldn't do at all to lose... to lose everything.

Best keep to the status quo. Best stay safe.

They had their whatever-it-was, their agreement and Arrangement, the companionship of the two longest-standing agents on Earth. It was enough to have that, Aziraphale told himself. It was enough to share the work, to lend a hand where it was needed and depend on the same in turn, to thoughtlessly take turns performing all the little miracles that made their lives run more smoothly as easily as any pair of humans might take turns paying the cheque for a meal out, trusting without keeping track that it would all come out even in the end. It was enough to share a meal with his dear old enemy, gently thwarting Crowley's passive wiles and little annoyances while Crowley in turn thwarted his minor benedictions so the net result was... nothing. Neutral. Just humanity, in all its good and bad and infinite variety. It was enough.

So that was how things stood. The Principality Aziraphale had Made The EffortTM exactly twice, and had no real intention of doing so again.

That was how things stood, and so they would remain—until the world didn't end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4 : Or, if one was Crowley, the suggestion that it was an absolutely delectable set that any human with an interest in that sort of thing would love to get their mouth on, but were certain that Crowley wouldn't give them the time of day. But that was Crowley for you. [return to text]
> 
> 5 : and quite different from the guilty pride of a successful Temptation in the course of the Arrangement [return to text]
> 
> 6 : (the Love he sensed, as well, didn't bear thinking of) [return to text]
> 
> 7 : All denial aside, Aziraphale never deluded himself that Crowley might turn him down. [return to text]


	3. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world didn't end, and an Angel and a Demon moved forward.

The world didn't end. The Apocalypse wasn't, because one very powerful and very _ human _ little boy was given a choice.

Heaven and Hell were thwarted in their war, and then again in their revenge. Bodies were exchanged, and given back safe and sound, and a pair of Angels (one fallen, and one not) dined at the Ritz and toasted to the dear old world.

The Principality Aziraphale sat and sipped his champagne, delighting in Crowley's demonic aura, while the Demon Crowley sprawled and drank and relished the familiar forbidden Divine of Aziraphale's. They enjoyed each other the way they always had—but not, entirely, the way they always had. Aziraphale sat a bit less primly, leaned toward Crowley. Crowley's long lean body was curved toward Aziraphale's, like growing plants toward the light.

Neither of them made any effort to hide the way they looked at each other, did not attempt to guiltily suppress their fond smiles. They were well beyond _ that_.

Earth's longest standing agents, formerly of Heaven and Hell and now free agents entirely, could have taken up where they'd left off. They could have left things just as they were, and considered themselves beyond lucky to have the world and each other.

It was Aziraphale who chose to change things, because it _ must _ be Aziraphale. He had always been the one saying 'no', after all, only fair that he was the one to move them forward now.

Crowley finished illustrating a tale with big sweeping hand motions, and the hand nearest Aziraphale came to rest on the table between them. Aziraphale's heart was full to overflowing with Love when he put his hand on top of Crowley's, and finally let himself stop suppressing the Effort he had wanted to Make with him for thousands of years.

Crowley's mouth dropped open, wonder and confusion on his face. He gasped a breath he didn't need, wet and shaking. "Aziraphale?" he breathed. "Angel?

"My _ dear _ Crowley," Aziraphale said, soft and warm with the smile wrinkles deepening around his eyes, and it was every bit the answer to Crowley's question. Crowley turned his hand beneath Aziraphale's to lace their fingers together and cling tight—almost afraid that it was a dream, or that Aziraphale would take it back. Aziraphale, of course, had no intention at all of taking it back. He sipped his flute of champagne, and kept smiling at Crowley.

"But you've never?" Crowley said.

"I have," Aziraphale answered serenely, and then, with no small amount of smugness as he lifted another bite of food to his mouth. "Twice."

Crowley sputtered briefly as his worldview was irrevocably shifted. "Why?" he finally managed to say.

Aziraphale lifted an eyebrow. "My dear boy, I think it's fairly obvious why now."

"No, ugh, angel, I know why_ now _. Why _ then_?"

"Because," Aziraphale started, and his thoughts ran on ahead of his words with angelic swiftness. '_ because they were lost, because they were hurt, because they were clever and kind and had been cast out and did not know they could still be loved and oh, no, I can't possibly say that to him'_. Instead he said. "Because I could." and then, "You mustn't be jealous."

"I'm not jealous, angel," Crowley said, with the same terrible softness he'd used to tell Aziraphale that his bookshop was burned down. "Were they... were they good to you?"

Aziraphale dabbed at his lips with the napkin, suddenly unable to meet Crowley's sunglasses-obscured gaze. He squeezed the hand he was still holding, and Crowley squeezed back. "Yes. Oh, most wonderfully so."

"Good," Crowley said, and he meant it.

Aziraphale put the napkin back on his lap, carefully smoothing it. "Have yours been?" he asked.

"Yeah," Crowley said, with a slight shrug. "I mean, you know, mostly."

"Ah," Aziraphale said, and he was finally able to look at Crowley again. "I'm glad for the ones who treated you well," he said, and he also meant it completely.

Crowley stroked his thumb along the side of Aziraphale's hand, smiling at nothing but him, and Aziraphale blushed slightly as he returned the gesture. They were so caught up in each other that they hardly noticed the server replace their empty plates with the next course. ( 8 ) The twin sparks of their Efforts brightened each other, the space between them full of possibility and devotion in equal measure. They were denying nothing, now, making no effort to curtail any of their emotions.

Tentatively, Aziraphale folded a turn of his Love around Crowley, to envelop him within it. There were some among the angelic cohort who were known to say it was the most intimate thing two beings could do with one another—and certainly, it was a terribly vulnerable thing to open oneself and let another past ones defenses—but clearly those who said it had never trusted someone enough to trade corporations. After something as intense as that it was intimate, yes, but more along the lines of an extension of their held hands.

Once, Aziraphale would have been terrified it would hurt one or both of them, (that is, if he'd allowed himself to think of doing it at all) but he knew better now. They were not really so different, after all: not the Demon who enjoyed performing the occasional Blessing and had always liked Mischief more than Cruelty and the Angel who could Possess and Tempt. Not the Demon and Angel who would walk into Heaven and Hell, respectively, for each other. Their energies were different, but not all _ that _ different.

If pressed, Aziraphale might liken it to the way a charcoal-seared Wagyu Steak and tender braised Wagyu Brisket were very different, but both still distinctly Wagyu Beef.

Crowley, completely unaware of any comparisons to food, no matter how 'scrummy', shuddered in all the dimensions he occupied at the feel of Aziraphale all around him. He enfolded Aziraphale in his own energies, their powers intersecting into a dappled tapestry. Their darks and lights both refracted, shedding all colors of the rainbow and their inverts and many colors beyond that no mortal creature could or would ever see or comprehend.( 9 )

"Oh," Aziraphale breathed, stormy eyes bright to glowing with wonder. "I had no idea it would do _ that_!"

"Probably the only ones who've tried it," Crowley pointed out.

Aziraphale gave Crowley one of those soft, fond looks that said everything when they hadn't dared speak it, and had been making Crowley melt for millennia. It hadn't lost its power, now that they could speak.

Then, Aziraphale being Aziraphale, he turned his attention to the food, because not even Crowley could distract him from it for long. Not that Crowley really wanted to distract him from the food, when he could instead enjoy how much Aziraphale enjoyed it.

The courses were small but there were enough of them to satisfy. Aziraphale oo'd and ah'd and smacked his lips and offered Crowley choice bites from his plate and accepted the bits from Crowley's plate that he didn't want to eat—Crowley was mostly happy to taste everything and then pass it along. Through it all, their hands touched and parted, and their feet beneath the table, and of course their energies pulsed together. Crowley was so caught up in it all that they were nearly through the entire meal when he realized that he hadn't been cool at all, just sitting there gazing at Aziraphale like a complete sap.

Old habits die hard. Crowley immediately countered his uncoolness with a snarky. "So, six thousand years of friendship, and all it takes is the end of the world?"

Aziraphale dabbed at his lips with the napkin again, gaze gone faraway. "I remember the Fall," he said, and it hit the conversation like a bucket of icewater.

Crowley's energy went all sharp and crystalline, pulling away from Aziraphale's as he jerked his physical body away. "Oh, you remember the Fall?" he snapped, crooked teeth gone a bit sharp and back-pointed. "Funny, I don't remember _ you _ taking a burning ssswan-dive!"

The jagged edges of Crowley's energy could have hurt Aziraphale, utterly open as he was, with Crowley within his defenses. The smart thing to do would have been to retreat, throw Crowley out of himself and slam the gates in his face. The thought never occurred to Aziraphale. He simply _ did not believe _ that any part of Crowley would harm him, and his own energy melted, giving way like calm water before a knife-blade and taking as little damage.

"Crowley, please," Aziraphale said, tenderly and with no fear at all in the face of Crowley's threats, his energy lapping against Crowley's sharpness like warm bathwater asking (but not demanding) to envelop him again.

Crowley exhaled a disgusted sound, running a hand through his hair as he melted his own energy and let it flow into Aziraphale's so they ran together like a river of a thousandfold darkbrilliant ripples. He waved his hand at Aziraphale to continue, and Aziraphale immediately forgave him for the instinctive reaction to having a sore spot unexpectedly prodded.

"As I was saying: I remember the Fall and I..." He closed his eyes, shaking his head. His soft lips trembled as he remembered, clear as the moment it happened, the screams of agony and the smell of burning angelic wings immeasurably more foul than the smell of any earthly feather burning. "For a moment I thought I would Fall, myself, from the horror of it." He looked over at Crowley again, the bright shine of tears sparkling in his eyes. "It frightened me so, I... I folded it all up into a little box and hid it away. Obeyed orders, parroted the party line, and told myself it was all going to work out for the best."

"Good little soldier, terrified and obedient, just like they wanted you," Crowley said, somewhere between bitter and soul-rendingly sad.

"Not all that obedient in the end, as it turns out." Aziraphale took Crowley's hand again, to have the physical contact to go along with the energy. It was grounding, and such a wonderful human gesture—and hadn't they chosen humanity as their side, together? "Gave away my sword first thing. We had our friendship all these years, and our Arrangement."

"Took me long enough to convince you," Crowley couldn't help needling, with a smile to try and take the sting from it.

The sting landed anyway. "I was so afraid, for so very long."

"I understand, angel, I do," Crowley's weariness showed in his voice. "You have a lot more to lose than I do. They already threw _ me _ away." Aziraphale made a little pained noise, the thought of his beloved Crowley being discarded as though he wasn't _ everything _ striking him right in the heart. But that was what had happened. Crowley continued, more quietly, as he rubbed his thumb in a circle against the back of Aziraphale's soft hand. "All that, and they still could. Are you sure you'd risk Falling for _ this_?"

There was no hesitation in Aziraphale's answer, no tremble of fear in his energies. "My dear, Heaven already tried to execute me. If they cast me out now, well," Aziraphale lifted Crowley's hand, never breaking eye contact with Crowley's sunglasses as he pressed a chase kiss to Crowley's knuckles (making it absolutely Crowley's turn to blush). "I've already chosen what side I'm on." He smiled then, a slight, wavering thing. "I chose our side quite a lot longer ago than I let myself believe it."

"I know," Crowley said, which would have been a lot cooler if it hadn't come out like he had a frog in his throat.

"We've wanted this so long," Aziraphale said. "Let's not wait any longer... though..." Aziraphale here looked at the table. "Perhaps just a _ tich _ longer? I was hoping to get to the pudding course. I've heard the tiramisu is absolutely divine."

"Angel, I would wait all of Eternity for you," Crowley said, with devastating sincerity, and then immediately considered making like an ouroboros and swallowing himself out of existence.

Only the fact that Aziraphale was still holding his hand stopped Crowley from attempting to flee the scene. The grip of his hand, and the way Aziraphale was looking at him, with the song of stars in his eyes. "Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale breathed. "I would do the same, and it wouldn't even feel like _ waiting _ if I got to spend the time with you."

Crowley turned his face away in a vain attempt to hide the tomato-like color it had turned, but he did not let go of Aziraphale's hand or draw his energies away from him.

Aziraphale chuckled, not unkindly, and summoned the somewhat-dazzled server for the next course.

They finished their meal, and lingered over the very tasty tiramisu and the coffee that went with it, and Crowley managed to sound very nonchalant when he held the door for Aziraphale and asked, "So, mine or yours?"

"Yours, I think." Aziraphale said, with every appearance of serenity. "My bed was taken over by books a century ago."

Crowley choked on air he didn't need to breathe at the thought of 'Aziraphale' and 'bed' together, coughed, and nodded. "Yeah, mine. Good call."

"Not to mention that rather _ inspired _ statue you have in the entryway. Tempting sculptors again, were we?"

"Hey, now," Crowley protested. "Michaelangelo was already like that before I got to him, angel. You know that."

"So you say." The twinkle of a barely-suppressed smile gave away that Aziraphale was just teasing.

They walked together, as they always had. Aziraphale strolled calmly with his hands neatly folded, and Crowley slithered his lanky way along beside him. In the etherial planes, their energies were still rippling and intersecting—the humans, obviously, couldn't see it, and yet in some instinctive way no one who saw them had any doubt that the two mismatched beings were going somewhere _ together_.

About halfway to Crowley's flat Aziraphale said, "Oh, this is silly," and offered Crowley his arm. They walked the rest of the way arm in arm, the way men had used to without it meaning a thing, but meant something so very true to them now.

The door to Crowley's flat conveniently closed itself behind them. For a moment they simply looked at each other, unsure how to begin. Then Aziraphale quirked an eyebrow, and Crowley grabbed him by the lapels and shoved him against the wall. He followed with his own body, crowding into Aziraphale. The aggression of the move (which did not frighten Aziraphale in the slightest) was entirely contradicted by the way Crowley's hands were shaking, the way his breath caught in a little broken inhale—forked tongue flicking out to wet his lips. His forehead came to rest against Aziraphale's, their noses just barely brushing.

"Yes," Aziraphale breathed, as his arms came around Crowley, who while holding him against the wall was now clinging to him like an anchor in the storm. One hand ended up curled around Crowley's serpentine hips, pulling them in close against Aziraphale's, while the other wove itself into Crowley's flaming hair. "Yes."

The word was everything—acceptance of everything they had denied themselves, that _ Aziraphale _ had denied, reassurance that this was fully and truly desired, consent and permission freely given. Everything was permitted. Crowley made another desperate little sound, hands clenched into fists on Aziraphale's lapels. Aziraphale wished then that he could see Crowley's eyes, that they didn't have the barrier of the sunglasses between them, but he would never in all the ages of the Earth take Crowley's armor from him.

"Is it always like that for you?" Aziraphale asked, lightly stroking Crowley's hair rather than wrapping a leg around Crowley's hip the way his body's instincts suggested.

"Uh, what?" Crowley asked, eloquently.

"When I was in you, and your body saw mine. The reaction was..." Aziraphale hesitated before choosing, "powerful. Is it always like that?"

Crowley laughed, a little high, his breath teasing warm across Aziraphale's lips. "Worse. Angel, you have _ no idea_." He pushed the tiniest bit forward, as though to kiss Aziraphale, before pulling the tiniest bit back again.

"Then do," Aziraphale urged. "You must have felt my longing?"

"I don't, can't.... Tell me?" It was begging, undignified and uncool. Crowley didn't stop. "The things I want, everything, I could—" _ take, tempt, defile, harm that which is dearest in my cold demonic heart_. "Tell me what to do?"

"Oh my dear, you must give yourself more credit," Aziraphale chided, and then, taking mercy. "Kissing. I always loved kissing you, and it has fallen dreadfully out of fashion. Let me kiss you?"

"Please," Crowley begged.

Aziraphale made a pleased little hum, his inhale drawing cold air across Crowley's dampened lips, but he did not kiss him on the mouth. Not immediately. First he tipped Crowley's head just a bit to the side, lifting himself up on his toes to press his lips to the sinuous curl of miniature scales just before his ear—the remnant of his other form that the humans had been mistaking for an intricate snake tattoo ever since they invented scarring their bodies with inked artwork.

Crowley shivered against him, and Aziraphale repeated the kiss with more fervor, soft and sucking to savor the feel and flavor. Then, simpler on the arm of Crowley's sunglasses—lush again on the sharp-angled corner of Crowley's jaw, lower again near his chin. Crowley was breathing hard, a wretched little 'please' on his lips that he did not give voice, and Aziraphale stole the shape of it out of his mouth.

They had not kissed like _ this _ when kissing was in fashion, not wet and open and wanton, Aziraphale's tongue dipping in to taste Crowley's mouth in tiny teasing flicks until Crowley's trembling control faltered and he wrapped his own infernally clever tongue all the way around it and pressed onward into the uncharted territory of Aziraphale's mouth.

Aziraphale did not need breath to moan, and moan he did as he delighted in the pure sensual pleasure of the kiss. He did put his leg around Crowley, quite without thinking about it, bringing the potent potentials of their Efforts even closer to each other. Crowley pushed him harder against the wall with one hand, while the other slid down to take a firm handful of Aziraphale's plush bottom, the better to pull him forward and grind their physical bodies together.

Far too soon for Aziraphale's liking, Crowley disengaged from the kiss with a gasp and a faint thread of worry in his energies. Aziraphale chased after his mouth, pressing soft-lipped kisses to Crowley's lips, his cheeks, his chin. "Yes," he whispered, again, hoping that this time Crowley would understand.

"Tell me?" Crowley's voice was hoarse, a hissing rasp far more demonic than he usually showed.

If he must, Aziraphale could guide the way. "Take me to your lovely canopied bed?" He requested. "I should enjoy seeing all of you, touching you, _ having _ you... if you like. And, if you like, offering the same?"

"Angel," Crowley's voice was dark with warning as he hid his face against Aziraphale's neck, the deep currents of his energy thick and viscous with wanting. "There is no part of you I wouldn't take."

Aziraphale very deliberately closed his lips around Crowley's earlobe and bit down, hard enough to sting. Crowley gasped against his throat, half-shocked, and the hand on Aziraphale's bottom clenched tight.

"Likewise," Aziraphale purred. He was not stopping, not this time, not unless Crowley wanted him to. He was not afraid, no matter if Crowley thought he ought to be. He had no ability to fear the one being he knew as well as his own soul and trusted above all others. "Now. The bed?"

Crowley nodded, hesitating briefly before stepping back and untangling their limbs from each other. He took off his sunglasses, searching Aziraphale's face as though he would see a lie or some hint of uncertainty or regret there. Aziraphale only smiled, and then pointedly glanced past him (and the inspiring statue) further into the flat.

"Sure," Crowley said, like he still didn't believe it was really happening. "Sure, all right." He turned to lead Aziraphale in, threading through his expansive space. No longer in direct physical contact with Aziraphale, he managed to find some of his typical banter. "Should I fetch us a bottle of wine? Chocolates and roses to seduce you properly?"

"You've brought me plenty of sweets and flowers, over the millennia," Aziraphale said, which was true and suddenly terribly embarrassing to Crowley. He hadn't meant it that way. Or, he had, but he hadn't thought Aziraphale would ever take it as such. "How much wine have we shared, since the humans invented it? Far too much to keep track."( 10 )

"And the mead," Crowley said, to cover for the messy emotions. "They figured out mead long before they got wine down."

"Ah, those early alcohols," Aziraphale sighed fondly. "So many evenings passing a gourd of fizzy mead round and round the fire..."

"Things have changed." Crowley stopped just past the door to the bedroom, unsure, when he'd though a month, a decade, a century, _ thousands of years _ earlier, that of course he knew exactly what he'd do with the object of his desire. Too many options. Too many fantasies, not all of them kind.

"So they do, faster and faster," Aziraphale said. "What delights will they invent in the next thousand years? Nothing so glorious as the printing press again, I'm afraid."

"You and your books," Crowley said, far too fond for the sarcasm it wanted to be, and turned to look at Aziraphale only to find him far closer than he'd expected. Aziraphale was smiling at him like he was a perfect bite of duck with crispy skin over rich flesh, or a masterfully crafted profiterole—like he was _ good_, and very much like something Aziraphale wanted to devour. It was almost too much, especially without his glasses, but before Crowley could decide to put them back on Aziraphale pulled him in for more kissing.

Nothing else seemed to matter, when they were kissing. Nothing but the feel of their bodies intersecting the way their energies were, intensifying both, nothing but the roaring power of their wants sharpening against each other. Crowley was so very good at wanting: wanting Aziraphale's manicured hand mussing his hair, wanting Aziraphale's soft lips on his, wanting his body against Aziraphale's. Wanting to wrap himself around Aziraphale and squeeze, wanting to grab and touch and hold all of Aziraphale and lick into his sweet sensitive mouth like he was fucking it with his tongue and gobble up every glorious sensual noise he made in response, wanting to feel the way Aziraphale responded to every touch.

"Oh, _ Crowley_," Aziraphale gasped, when his mouth was released for the moment. His eyes blazed with glorious power for just a moment before they fluttered closed and he drew Crowley back into kissing.

The sensible serpent part of Crowley's brain had him guiding Aziraphale back toward the bed as they kissed, with the vague idea that coiling and writhing together there would be preferable, while the rest of his mind was all caught up in 'mine' and '_mine' _ and '_MINE'_ and the pleasure of touch.

Aziraphale startled when his legs hit the side of the bed, breaking away from Crowley's mouth to glance behind himself. "Ah," he said. "Of course." and beamed at Crowley as he snapped his fingers to banish every stitch of his clothing to a neatly folded stack on the chair. He sat himself on the deep red bedspread as bare as the moment he'd been made with absolutely no sign of selfconsciousness, mouth rosy with kissing, and gestured to all of Crowley. "Might I see?"

Crowley gulped an awkward sort of sound, and nodded. He considered, for a very brief moment, making a proper strip-tease of it until he remembered the one time he'd tried to take this particular pair of skinny jeans off the normal way. Hopping across the room on one foot as he tried to wrench the damn thing over his heel was definitely not a sexy look. He snapped his fingers, and his own clothes interspersed themselves haphazardly among Aziraphale's, messing up the neat pile.

Bare, Crowley's body was very obviously different from a human's, bones and musculature far more snakelike through his torso, slender and flexible in match to his long limbs. A happy trail of glossy red scales led down to the part of his legs, framing his hard penes. They'd everted in his arousal, a pair of barbed members each about the size of a thumb.

"Lovely," Aziraphale crooned, gaze sweeping over all of Crowley. He held out both hands to him, beckoning him in.

"Look who's talking."

Aziraphale was solid and rounded where Crowley was thin, a constellation of stars gleaming across his chest and belly, and between his legs a thin seam of flickering golden light. Crowley might have gone to his knees to see if it burned his mouth the way it looked like it might, if Aziraphale hadn't taken hold of him to move him another direction entirely. He wanted Crowley above him, and so Crowley straddled his soft thighs and wrapped his arms around Aziraphale's shoulders.

"There we are." Aziraphale kissed Crowley's smooth chest, his shoulders, his long throat, and then his mouth to muffle his shout when Aziraphale grabbed his hips with both hands and pulled him in close, so their Efforts rubbed together.

Between them, Aziraphale's seam of light had opened, releasing a dagger of gold fire that curved wickedly toward his belly. Crowley wanted to make a quip about flaming swords, but the fire engulfed his penes and all that came out was a hoarse cry and an instinctive jolt of his hips.

It didn't burn. It was warm, a gentle caress that teased every single bump and barb of his penes and even pressed down into the hollow of his vent—igniting every last nerve ending in pleasure.

"It won't hurt you," Aziraphale promised, gasping and breathless as he slowly rolled his hips, rubbing his Effort through and around Crowley's. "I _ couldn't _ hurt you."

Crowley shuddered, hips thrusting in a sharp counterpoint to Aziraphale's gradual motions. His grip on Aziraphale's shoulders seemed the only thing anchoring him to the physical plane. Everything else was overwhelmed, too much. "I'd want it," he said, a confession he was hardly aware of making. "Even if, I'd _ want _ it."

Aziraphale made a considering noise, his hands stroking a neverending loop from Crowley's knees to his crown and back again, touching everything. "Maybe, oh, another time. Would I..." he broke off in a panted whine. "Would you have me be a righteous angel, call you a 'foul fiend' and a 'wicked beast' and grind you beneath my heel?"

Crowley had just enough self-awareness to be embarrassed at the gutteral noise that punched out of him, the way his body and energies responded to the thought, pulsing with fevered heat.

"Yes," Aziraphale said. "Oh, yes, but not this time. This time I worship." and his words rang out between them even as his mouth was busy kissing any part of Crowley's body he could reach. "Oh glory to thy fiery hair, and glory to thy burnished scales, and glory to the trembling of thy body and the salt sweat on thy skin, and glory to thy vivid yellow eyes, and glory to the clever sharpness of thy tongue, and glory to kindness hidden in the chambers of thy heart where only I may see..."

It felt to Crowley that there were many more than two hands stroking him, everywhere, and feathers, and gold, and light holy enough to destroy him that instead cradled him in radiance.

As an Angel, of course, Aziraphale could worship forever. It was what he had been made first and best to do, and the delicious sacrilege of turning it to Crowley in the midst of their Lust was both the sweetest and the filthiest thing he'd ever felt. It twisted through his energies, guilty like getting away with performing a solid Temptation, and he wrapped it like grappling lines around and around Crowley's corporation to pull it closer to his own.

There was only so much praise Crowley could handle, the beauty of it too raw even as he lapped up every drop like a parched human cool water. "Enough," he begged. "Aziraphale, enough!"

Aziraphale mercifully fell silent, stroking Crowley's body with only two hands. His eyes were still burning-bright, the worship still in them even if he did not speak it. Crowley hissed harshly and unleased his own energies on Aziraphale. He was a Demon, his love laced with Greed and Lust and Temptation, and Aziraphale cried out as he embraced it, drank it in, the fire of his Effort growing beneath it.

Crowley gentled his energies, then, and kissed Aziraphale on the brow, on his eyelids, sweet and chaste even as their Efforts moved through and within each other. "I couldn't hurt you," he promised, what felt a very important response to Aziraphale's assertion of the same.

"Not this time," Aziraphale said. "But another time, my dear, I'd have you be the wicked demon to capture an innocent angel and _ take _ what carnal acts you like." His energies twisted and trembled at the thought, wrong but good. Wanted.

Crowley's all but _ boiled_. "How," he breathed, searching Aziraphale's face. "How did you know, I..."

Aziraphale shook his head and laughed, hiccoughing and raw, glowing in both the 'sweaty' and 'casting light' meanings. "We're not so different. I've wanted you in _ every _ possible and impossible way. And you..?"

"So much," Crowley admitted, the confession easier on the heels of Aziraphale's. His fears and worries were evaporating from him in the slide of skin and exchange of pleasures. The ages of the world, however many more of them there would be now, stretched out ahead of him, with time enough to explore anything and everything they wanted to—him and his angel.

"I will learn you, sweet and bitter and every flavor." Aziraphale's tone had turned toward prayer, face transfixed as he rolled his hips up into Crowley's. "I will savor you, every delicious mouthful, from this moment through Eternity."

"Shut up," Crowley mumbled, the words all but unintelligible as they were caught up in a kiss like he would devour Aziraphale's mouth. Telling Aziraphale to shut up had never worked, even once, and adding a kiss to it did nothing to change that fact. Neither did Crowley reaching between them, his long deft fingers stroking the flame of his Effort before finding the seam of flesh from whence it came and (when Aziraphale spread his legs wider and arched into it in invitation) pushing knuckles-deep into the core of his being.

To be fair, there was a moment where the only thing Aziraphale was capable of doing was writhing and gasping 'oh', and Crowley felt like the biggest baddest demon who ever Fell. Then Aziraphale adjusted, shaking and panting, but still speaking. "Oh, but I will taste you. Wasn't it our dear Oscar who wrote 'love is a sacrament best taken kneeling'."

"Don't quote Wilde in bed!" Crowley protested, even as he squirmed at the implications. He hadn't thought that Aziraphale picked up on the particular _ nuance _ of that line.

"Relevant," Aziraphale gasped, licking his plush lips and pointedly looking at Crowley's penes, proving that he most definitely had.

It was very nearly enough to make Crowley's much-pleasured physical body tip over the edge into orgasm.

"Oh, _ do_," Aziraphale urged. "I will too." He ground himself on Crowley's fingers, groaning low and long. He clung to Crowley with one hand, the other tenderly cradling Crowley's penes.

Crowley threw his head back, pleasure arcing through him, and then fell forward against Aziraphale. His mouth opened, wanting more than anything to _ bite down _ to ground himself in the onslaught, but even as he thought it he realized that his crooked teeth had grown too sharp and poisonous. He would not pierce his angel, and tried to content himself with lipping softly at Aziraphale's neck, tasting the tang of Angelic sweat.

As if Aziraphale could read his distressed whine as easily as he read any human script ever shown him, he said "oh!", and a crop of armoring scales as smooth as Crowley's own but in shades of lavender-gray and cream flowed over his neck and shoulder. They were sleek and warm, satisfying resistance against Crowley's fangs as he bit down. Aziraphale cried a sharp sound, his Effort flaring hot, his flesh clenching around Crowley's fingers, and his soft hand squeezed Crowley's penes.

They came together, in a riot of Love and Lust and shades of uncounted more sins and virtues. Their energies pulsed bright, vivid darkness and blinding color and all and every thing between and beyond. Completion rolled over them, as beautiful as the song of stars but so much warmer. Their physical bodies, sated, slumped together, and in all other planes they rang like bells.

Eventually Aziraphale said "oof," and let himself topple backward to lie starfished on the bed.

Crowley tumbled with him, long limbs in disarray. "I should probably, uh," he said, making to slip his fingers from Aziraphale's core. It had returned to a thin seam of light, with no dagger of flame. Crowley's fingers seemed to be all that held it open.

A soft hand closing around his wrist stopped him, and Aziraphale gently but inexorably pushed Crowley's fingers all the way back in with a delicate shudder. "Just there, if you please."

"Yeah? Yeah." Crowley agreed readily, and set to rearranging himself for comfort. He ended up happily with his head on Aziraphale's breast, his thigh thrown over Aziraphale's. Aziraphale wrapped his arm around Crowley's shoulders, and played with the messy strands of his hair. "What's it feel like?" Crowley asked, eventually, meaning the fingers he still had within Aziraphale. He always had been curious, and his regular Efforts were much different from Aziraphale's.

"Its, hmm." Aziraphale pondered. "You fill me where there was no hollow to be filled. I'm stretched, caressed, full to the brimming. It's intimate, to feel you within my body even just a little, like this." He moved against Crowley's hand, oh so slowly, a luxuriant shimmy. "You should know that I can be terribly greedy with my pleasures."

"I like Greed! Big fan of Greed, me." Crowley grinned against Aziraphale's skin. There was no where in Heaven, Hell, Earth, or the Galaxy he'd rather be than right there in his bed with Aziraphale. He would never get tired of it, with no biological imperatives to urge him to do anything else.

They floated in that moment together, just the two of them together in gentle companionship, and neither of them cared if it was for minutes or days. They would move when they wanted to move.

"Oh, this holy union," Aziraphale murmured, after a time.

"Infernal union," Crowley corrected, mumbled sleepily against Aziraphale's warm skin.

Aziraphale's belly moved slightly, a laugh almost suppressed. "Neither, then. This utterly mundane union, as we do cancel each other out, don't we?"

"No," Crowley protested, more clearly this time. "We don't subtract from each other, we add." He looked up, head sweeping back and forth as if to indicate the astounding beauty of the infinite-colored lightgloaming of their combined energies, swirling around them in the etherial planes. "We make something else, something different. Bigger than either of us."

"Right you are, my dear boy," Aziraphale agreed, serenely. "Of _ course _ you're right. Let's find out out what we build, together."

Crowley closed his eyes, nuzzling into Aziraphale's belly as Aziraphale's short nails resumed running through his hair. "Together," he agreed.

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 8 : And there was so much Love pouring off the two of them that the server had to immediately retreat to the staff room and compose a poem to send to their partner, along with a rather saucy picture taken on the spot. Miraculously, they were not caught texting at work, and did not get in any trouble for it. [return to text]
> 
> 9 : (with the sole exception of the peacock mantis shrimp, who can see about 10% of the etheric spectrum if they want to but are, to a shrimp, too busy supersonic-death-punching to bother) [return to text]
> 
> 10 : This was a blatant lie. Being of original angelic stock their minds were more than capable of tallying up all the wine they'd ever drunk in the past six thousand years, both together and apart, and come to the conclusion that they'd shared a bit more than not, and moreover that, on balance, they'd enjoyed the ones they shared more than the ones they'd drunk alone or in other company. They'd both made that realization separately, over the years, and then strenuously endeavored to forget it. [return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments are love <3


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